


I Can't Remember (I Can't Forget)

by AssistedRealityInterface



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff and Angst, hot mess sara does her best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 21:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13598862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssistedRealityInterface/pseuds/AssistedRealityInterface
Summary: Ava Sharpe sacrifices herself for the Greater Good. Sara is having none of that.





	I Can't Remember (I Can't Forget)

**Author's Note:**

> It's been awhile, but being depressed and finishing school and life will do that to you. In any case! This was for femslash feb, I hope everyone enjoys it! I also sort of fiddled with some headcanons/theories I have and no one is dead because dctv is stupid and I will have none of it.

Ava can’t see Sara’s face when she grabs her hand in the darkness, which is probably for the best. There’s no light for her to see the tears on her face, or notice the blurred vision from her own; all she has is the wet, hot flush across her cheeks, and the ripping pain of Sara’s fingernails digging into the meat of her palm, tearing half-moons along her skin. The new wounds weep in turn.

“I have to do this,” Ava tells her, patient and slow, like she’s showing Sara how to put together a piece of furniture instead of explaining the inevitability of sacrifice. “If it’s not me, no one can, Sara. I’m a part of him. It. Whatever. If I kill him, then he’s gone for good, and we’re rid of a big bad nightmare from the beginning of time. And, more importantly, you’ll be safe. I really don’t see what the problem is here.”

“The problem is _you’ll die with him,_ bubblehead,” Sara snaps, and oh, it doesn’t matter she can’t see when she can hear the thick mucus coating of grief over Sara’s words. “You’re a—a part of him. A construct. Right?”

“Right,” Ava confirms, a flicker of shame flaring up in her chest. The wounds Sara’s made in her hand ache. “So it’s better if I die. I’m a monster. I’m less than a monster. I’m the rib ripped out of a monster. If you’d just take a second and think this through—“

“No, shut up,” Sara says, “it’s not about thinking anymore, I’m so fucking _tired_ of thinking, Ava, I’m so tired of _thinking_ and being _brave_ and making the _wise decisions_ because I’m the fucking _captain_ and it’s so dumb and bad and awful, but I want to be dumb and bad and awful. I’m going to be selfish, the most selfish worst person in the world, because I need you to stay. You _have_ to stay, Ava, please—“

“I can’t,” Ava insists. “I know you want to be selfish. I understand. You’ve earned that right. You’ve lost so much. I can forgive you a little selfishness.”

She lifts her wounded hand from Sara’s embrace and cups her cheek. Salt stains on her face sting and seep into Ava’s hand, a low fizzling pain that scratches at her wrist. Sara nuzzles her cheek into Ava’s hand with ardent desperation.

“But it’s not you who has to be selfless,” Ava says, “it’s me. And I must. So I will. Oh, Sara. Will you ever be able to forgive me for what I’ve done?”

Sara’s breaths bubble up in her throat around her sobs, and she drowns in them, forcing out, “No, no, no,” though what she’s denying Ava’s unsure. She strokes the heel of her palm along Sara’s cheekbone, her fingers reaching out to cup her hair, twined in the strands. When she lifts her hand away a single shining strand comes with her for luck, wound around her fingertip.

Ava reaches up to her face and rubs at her eyes with her palm, accepting the sting of new blood in her eyes and the river of salt poured over her wounds. They are all signs of her body, her _self,_ independent from Mallus. Her own body, her own being. If it hurts, it’s a sign she’s alive and aware to feel it. The body-pain, she can handle. Still, there are other kinds.

“Hold onto me,” Ava says, her words swimming upstream through the flow of tears, “Remember me. I won’t remember. I won’t know who I am. I won’t remember you, or me, or anything, because I won’t exist. But—but I have to believe you can hold on for me. If you hold onto me, I will come back. I trust you.”

“I don’t,” Sara moans, shaking her head, her shoulders slumped forward and shuddering. “Why do you trust me? That’s so stupid, I’m so _bad,_ and it doesn’t make any sense besides—“

“Oh, god, Sara,” Ava laughs, “nothing you’ve ever done makes sense. I have high hopes for you.”

She leans in close one last time, and in the dark, she misses. Sara’s hands reach out and grab her, and pull her back to a place she knows, a body she remembers, a pair of lips so soft against her own that it aches—

There are other kinds of pain. The pain of the body as the softness of Sara’s embrace fades, replaced by the roiling guts of the darkness she’s suddenly elbow-deep in, tearing the monster she came from apart until it splits like a ribcage and she can climb in and tear out its heart, taking it in her mouth and ripping it into shreds, baying with triumph as black blood stains her face and teeth and clogs up her throat is something she breezes through, welcomes it like the skittering of leaves across cold autumn ground.

All the other pain comes from parts of the heart and soul. It’s strange to think that, and know for a fact that she has neither, and thus, there should really _be_ no pain, but there is, and it’s in the shape of Sara, screaming her name as the rippling white halo surrounding Mallus’ realm collapses and Ava is alone.

…

Sara gets spat back out of the darkness with an abrupt lack of ceremony, tossed onto the Waverider’s floor like yesterday’s papers. Her head hits the base of the holotable and she curls up in pain, taking a deep, shuddering breath. She’s not sure how many of them she has left in her anymore. How is she supposed to breathe around the absence in her chest?

“Sara,” Rip says, like he doesn’t quite believe it, dropping to his knees and running his hand through her hair. “Oh, god, I thought—I thought I’d lost you. I thought you’d died—“

“Not lost,” Sara says, letting him soothe the sore spot on her head, an ache building her temples. “Wasn’t just me. Rip? I didn’t go in alone. Who’s gone, Rip?”

“Gone? Sara, you’re just dazed, I can’t believe it, I really thought for a second I’d finally gotten you back and you’d gone and broken your skull on me,” Rip laughs, weak and strained. “There’s no one else. We’re all here now, and so are you. You’re safe.”

“I’m safe,” Sara echoes, but it isn’t quite right. There’s something she’s missing, and the question mark hangs in her head around every other thought, the heavy point at the bottom trying to lead her to an answer, an ending. But nothing comes to her as she sits up and lets Rip hold her, Gideon fussing over her and admonishing Nate and Mick help her up to the medbay, which they do, their hands tight around her body as they tell her how worried they were, how glad they are that she’s back, and she is too, but there’s something missing—

_Will you ever be able to forgive me for what I’ve done?_

“What?” Sara asks as Nate lowers her into the exam chair. “What did I do? I don’t remember. What did I do?”

“ _You saved us, captain!”_ Gideon offers, pricking her with a needle, drawing blood and examining her vitals. “ _You saved the world, actually. Is that not enough?”_

“Doesn’t make sense,” Sara mumbles. “Nothing I ever do makes any sense.”

_I have high hopes for you._

“Selfish,” Sara sighs, and lets Gideon sedate her, falling asleep.

…

Six months pass. Jax comes home, because Stein could only enjoy retirement and his new grandbaby so much with Jax and Lily hanging over his shoulder and pestering him, and he brings Wally along, which makes Nate happy and Amaya a _little_ jealous, but the Waverider had a way of just pulling everyone into a massive squishy pile of mutual affection, so the issue sorted itself out after a few nights of working through the problem. Sara steers the ship and Rip maps their course, and they have a pretty good system going, and a damn good crew to go with it. It’s—peaceful, sort of, even though the occasional ripple of anachronisms or aberrations rocks the boat once in awhile.

It’s a passing comment that really shakes Sara to her core, at what might be two in the morning or six in the evening but _feels_ late, and it comes when she’s bent over and squinting into the light of the fridge, trying to divine what to have as a snack half-blinded.

“ _Whatever happened to that little tart you and my Captain were so fond of, captain?”_

The words don’t penetrate Sara’s brain completely for a few seconds, so she has time to decide on a sleeve of coconut cookies and bite down on one before it hits her and she bites down on her fingers mid-cookie. She coughs, slamming the fridge door shut, gasping and grasping for a glass of water.

“What _tart?”_ she demands, wiping her mouth and struggling to breathe. “Gideon?”

“ _You know, the blonde one,”_ Gideon says. “ _Ah. Not quite specific enough. Tall? Rather muscular. The one that stole my Captain away when he went off to dally with the Time Bureau nonsense.”_

“I,” Sara shudders, her breath coming in short pants as she grabs at her chest. The hollow space around her insides is starting to fill in, and it’s suffocating her. “Gideon. Do you remember—remember her name?”

“ _It should be somewhere in my files. Let me pull up a picture, at least, there must be something on the Waverider’s sensor footage…”_

Gideon whirrs and hums, the floor of the ship throbbing with the quick start-up of her processors as a panel slides away from the kitchen wall and a camera flickers to life, displaying a hologram. “ _Well, it’s not quite a picture, but will this suffice? I’m trying to find her name, but—“_

“Ava.”

“ _Come again?”_

“Ava.” Sara twists her hair up and out of her face with one hand, shaking her head and rubbing at her eyes. “Ava, it’s Ava, it’s _Ava,_ how could I have been so _stupid—“_

“ _Captain? Is something the matter?”_

“Yes. No. I don’t know, maybe,” Sara swallows, takes a step towards the shining afterimage of Ava in front of her, like a mirror reflecting moonlight. “Oh, god. I remember you. I remember. Can you ever forgive me for what I’ve done?”

The words shake a memory loose, like a stone crumbling under the tides. It comes in fragments, scattered along seafoam, but—

“Gideon,” Sara says. “Use whatever you have on this woman—Ava Sharpe, it’s Ava—to try to pinpoint her temporal location. I don’t care how long it takes. I need to know where she is.”

“ _Well, if you’re that worked up over an ex, I suppose I can help,”_ Gideon says. “ _I really don’t see what all the fuss is about, though.”_

“I’ll explain when we find her,” Sara says, and doesn’t correct herself for the certainty. It’s the only thing she has to hold on to right now.

…

It takes another few hours of restless processing, and Sara spends all of them trying to figure out how to tell Rip about the woman he doesn’t remember, that none of them remember, because when Mallus left so did everything else he’d left his dirty fingerprints on and that included Ava, and she’s not _really_ sure how Gideon knows, but she’s not sure of anything, ever, and she doesn’t know if this will work or it’s a good idea or if it even makes sense but—

_Nothing you ever do makes any sense, Sara._

She wraps Rip’s afghan around her shoulders and sobs.

He comes in ten minutes later with two mugs of tea and puts one down in front of her, and then sits at her feet as she weeps herself blind in his chair. He leans his head back against her thigh and sighs, taking a sip.

“If you get snot all over that, we’ll have to send it back to my mother,” he says. “I don’t know how to wash wool, I’m sorry.”

“Do I look like I do?” Sara sniffles. “God, Rip. I must look so stupid.”

“Sara, if you really think I’m going to get on you for crying, you’re just being obstinate,” Rip chides her. “Sip of tea first, and then tell me.”

“Ava,” Sara blurts out. “I forgot _Ava_ because she saved us from Mallus she saved _me_ she gave her whole stupid dumb noble good brave _selfless_ self up for _us_ for _me_ I did this I’m a _monster—“_

“Ava,” Rip breathes. “Oh, fucking hell, I cannot fucking believe—“

He runs a hand through his hair. “Bloody fat hell, Sara, it’s my fault too, then, because I’m the one who studied temporal anomalies and researched Mallus and then apparently just pissed it all away and _forgot._ Which, incidentally, one of the worst things a Time Master can do. Lesson number—well, it’s not the most important one. Let’s give it a six.”

She cracks a weak, watery smile for him, and has a sip of her tea. It makes his shoulders sag in relief, and he exhales slowly, rubbing his hand over his beard. “It does make sense, when I think about it. I don’t—it’s like my brain is a record player skipping over the scuffs on the disc. I can’t quite hold the thought of her in my head, but that’s symptomatic of this sort of issue, and she _was_ a revenant of his—“

“ _Fuck,”_ Sara groans. “I can’t believe Gideon had to remind me, though. She’s never going to let me live it down.”

“Gideon or Ava?”

“Both,” Sara says, rubbing at her eyes and smiling. It’s a little more genuine this time. “It’ll give her something to do in between reminding you how you dumped us for five years to have your midlife crisis.”

Rip laughs, and after a beat, Sara does as well. Gideon hums in amusement, the walls of the room vibrating briefly. “ _My captains, if you are quite done bantering—“_

“Oh, did you pinpoint her?” Sara says.

“ _Yes,”_ Gideon pauses here, vibrating briefly. “ _And no, I’m afraid. It’s—it’s a bit confusing to explain. Well, I mean, I can explain it perfectly, but you might not understand—“_

“Okay, one, ouch? And secondly—“

“Gideon, don’t be cross, just tell her what happened,” Rip says. “Tell us, actually, because I’m still trying to piece together everything.”

 _“It’s all right, my Captain,”_ Gideon soothes him, and Sara makes a face. “ _I’ve located someone with the genetic and physical details that sync up perfectly with Ava Sharpe as she’s registered in my database, but this person does not appear to share their name, or their history. In fact, she doesn’t seem to exist historically at all. All I have is a location and a date where someone matching her description was seen. Will that suffice?”_

“I—sure,” Sara says. “Does that mean she was, like…reborn?”

_“I’m not sure, frankly. I don’t think it works like that, but we were dealing with a titanic, eldritch being from before time, and that may jam up the works quite a bit, logistically.”_

“Sounds about right,” Sara agrees. “Where is she?”

Gideon tells her.

…

It’s both a surprise and a given that Rip’s set a course for Star City, 2018, because that’s how her wildest dreams would want it, but also that’s how her wildest dreams would want it, and it doesn’t quite feel so real for it to be so easy. And maybe it won’t really be easy to track down one woman in a city full of people, but she really was expecting to have to dress fancy and bring the rest of the team to deal with…well, time dragons? Space vampires. _Something._

But instead, everyone’s on shore leave, and she’s out in her casual street clothes with her phone in her pocket waiting for a call back from her sister for dinner and a catch-up party with her, Nyssa, and Felicity, and all of this feels normal except for the pounding in her chest, the creeping hollowness around all of the parts of her she’s aware of under the skin, and the sinking period beneath the question mark in her brain weighing down her every step. Totally normal.

The little silver beeper Gideon had given her to track down someone matching the genetic profile of Ava Sharpe lays snug at the bottom of her purse, but Sara’s ignoring it, because that’s the sensible solution to hunting down one woman in a city of millions, and nothing she’s done to get Ava back has made any sense yet, so she’s going to keep plunging forward and see where her flailing thoughts take her.

Sara wanders around for four hours before her feet start to ache and she checks the sky with a sigh and admits defeat in the face of needing to meet her sister after work, so she plunges her hand into her bag and wrestles with trying to find the tracker as she walks, turning around the avenue and up the street towards the police department building, and collides with a broad, sturdy chest, her cheek pillowed against a pair of breasts she knows _incredibly_ well, and grabs the other woman’s arm like she’s the last lifeboat on a sinking ship.

“Goodness, I’m sorry, I should’ve been more careful, but you’re hurting my—“

The woman stops. Sucks in a breath. Her free hand reaches up and undoes her bun, and a curtain of familiar hair falls over Sara’s face and shoulders, bringing a wave of honey and cinnamon scent with it.

“Sara,” Ava sighs, “get your face out of my chest.”

“I wasn’t _looking,”_ Sara defends herself, “I had my face in my bag, I was trying to find this stupid beeper Gideon made so I could find you ‘cause I’ve been walking around for hours hoping I’d just sort of bump into you and then I gave up and tried to find it and I found _you,_ Ava, _you—“_

She bursts into tears, surprising both herself and Ava, but Ava’s better about taking these things in stride, always has been. She bustles Sara inside and wraps her arms tight around her in the doorway, letting her dry her tears on her shirt before looking up at Ava, bumping her forehead against her jawline before being greeted with a fond, slow kiss to her brow.

“You remembered,” Ava murmurs, her voice low with wonder as she strokes Sara’s hair. “I knew you’d remember.”

“Actually, it was really hard,” Sara mumbles. “Gideon asked me where ‘that blonde tart’ had gone—her words, not mine—and it jolted me back.”

Ava snorts. “Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

“But I never really forgot!” Sara promises. “I don’t know if I remembered, but I didn’t forget you. I felt so empty and weird and there was always something in my head I couldn’t name or shake off and that was you, it had to be? Because you’re standing right here, and you’re safe, right? You’re like, totally reborn or whatever? Because if this is a dream or you leave me I’m going to absolutely lose my _shit.”_

“I’m here,” Ava laughs, a relieved huff of breath as she runs her hands over Sara’s back. “Not sure how. Must be you, doing that thing where you don’t make any sense and you save the day again. My hero.”

“Rip says there’s some temporal academia explanation to it, and I don’t care, and when he says the words ‘temporal academia’ I want to ban speaking on the Waverider until he promises not to, so I wouldn’t worry about it,” Sara says. “Just makes sense to me, you know? You’re not Mallus’, Ava. You’re mine. You’ve always been mine. It makes sense that you’d come back to me.”

Ava blinks away tears and purses her lips, taking a deep breath and nodding, leaning in closer. “Sara—“

Sara takes Ava’s face in her hands and claims her lips, leaving little red marks along the swell of her lower lip as a reminder, breaking the kiss only when Ava starts to whimper, panting for breath, her hair messy and her cheeks stained red.

“I really do wanna know how someone with no past got a law degree, but you can tell me over dinner,” Sara says. “Good news, next step in the relationship, you get to meet my sister and her girlfriends. And _then_ we can go back to the team.”

“Oh, god, I can’t wait to watch Rip try to explain this to them,” Ava says, leaning her head against the top of Sara’s, breathing her in.

“His problem, not mine,” Sara says. “Join me for dinner, kitten? Pretty please?”

“Well, you said please,” Ava agrees, “and I’ve got nowhere else to be, and nowhere else I want to go, so…I’m coming with you, Sara.”

Sara nods, and takes the hand Ava proffers her, winding it in her own. Her fingers glance over four half-moon scars in the palm of her hand, and Sara squeezes her hand a little tighter in response, pulling her out of the foyer and through the door.

“We’ll call Laurel, I’ll hail a cab, meet her at the restaurant—I just wanna talk to you for a little bit,” Sara says. “Alone. With more than my mouth.”

“Fingering me in the back of a cab isn’t talking, don’t be disgusting,” Ava insists, tapping her nose as Sara playfully licks her finger, grinning. “We’ll have a nice dinner and _then_ we’ll talk on the ship.”

“With more than my mouth?”

“We’ve got two mouths between us,” Ava says, “and four hands.”

“Good math,” Sara agrees. “It’ll add up to infinity orgasms somehow. I can feel it.”

Ava makes a face and Sara tuts, leaning in to steal a kiss. “Don’t pretend to be shocked, you missed me. I know you.”

Before she can steal the kiss, Ava grabs her gently by the jaw and pulls her in, giving it to her freely with a sigh of pleasure.

“Yes,” she agrees as she breaks away, rubbing her thumb fondly over Sara’s cheek, her touch filling in all the hollow parts in Sara’s chest and letting her catch a full breath again before she leans back in to kiss it away, “you do.”

 


End file.
